They trudge slowly from door to door, freezing, lips blue, as the wind cuts through them. They huddle together for warmth, wishing for scarves and heavy coats instead of the light jumpers they find themselves in.
No hats, no gloves. Street urchins with their crew cuts and low brows and vague freckles. They might be brothers, the three of them. Hands in their pockets only come out when they slip on the ice and try and steady themselves. One falls. The crack of coccyx on pavement would normally bring howls of laughter from the others. Instead they help him up, choose not to make fun of the silent tears that run down his face.
They trudge on, more slowly than before.
From the outside the light shining from the window radiates warmth. It is the soft glow of a lamp, a candle on the mantlepiece and the orange warmth of the fire beneath. Inside the man sits with his book and his dog who is twitching, dreaming in front of the blazing logs. Beside him a glass of 15 year old single malt. Each sip sends a trickle of heat of his from his throat to his toes. He sips often.
They approach the door. The one who fell wipes away any trace of his weeping. Rattling with cold the leader, as there’s always a leader, steps forward and rings the doorbell. He moves back into the line up, they link arms to try and stave off the cold, and they wait.
Inside the man hears the bell, the dog who normally bellows at the slightest sound outside is so deep in his slumber he barely twitches. The man sighs, gets up, goes out into the hall which feels like walking into a freezer after moving away from the fire, and opens the door. They begin.
“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you-”
“Fuck off lads”, he says, closing the door.
They trudge away, disconsolate, until the leader comes back to the door, shaking with cold and rage. It is impotent though. There is nothing he can say to express how he feels. So he picks up a stone and throws it through the sitting room window. This time the dog doesn’t just twitch, he comes awake in a frenzy of startled barking.
The man sighs and thinks he might have handled the situation better when he first opened the door. He could have been nicer, perhaps. Or, he might just have brought the dog with him. He looks for the Yellow pages.
They leg it, scampering up the road, no longer feeling quite as cold.
from the bottom of the street moose turns and gives twenty a one fingered salute…
SCENES FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD TWENTY???
It works both ways, Gluey.
15 year old… Dalwhinnie was it?
Glencadam, I believe.
Should have horsewhipped the blighters.
Yellow Pages, 0800, do Knackers fix windows?
you should work in adertising, Twenty. Id love a whiskey right now.
Did you get glass all over the smoking jacket?
“Come inside and warm yourselves lads ” said Mr Gadd
RIP Top Cat!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8427789.stm
Benny will be devastated.
Twenty = TC, Benny = Dave, Gluey for Officer Dibble ?
It was too hot for the smoking jacket HM. I was in my paisley briefs.
I was in my paisley briefs.
Twenty Major, style guru, the net’s Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen!
I had Protestant carol singers last week. Very civilised and well dressed for the weather.
I had Protestant carol singers last week. Very civilised and well dressed for the weather.
Did some beardy smug lookin cunt arrive behind them with all his mates he just texted and ruin it?
I fucking ran him.
This, from 1924, is brilliant!
The Most. Rev. Dr. Fogarty, in the course of his letter, said:- “I will have nothing to do with a Carnegie Library. I have seen some of these institutions. They are storehouses of wretched novels and semi-pagan stuff of the same cultural level as penny illustrated papers from England, which, I am sorry to say, our people buy and smoke like opium, with the same narcotic effect on their brains and better life. We have enough of that poison without taxing the people to supply more of it.
“What advantage are the ratepayers, already overburdened, from the mountains of Kinnitty to the bogs of Edenderry, going to get from supplying out of their slender purse lounges and novels to the cigarette-smoking, idle, mooning youths of Tullamore and like towns; for no one else is going to resort to your fanciful treasure houses?
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1223/1224261159489.html
Them cunts knocked on my door last week,
with their fuckin’ Romamian minder at the gate.
Is the Fields of Athenry singer from Grafton Street still in business?
It’s only the begining of winter, by early March they’ll be in potters field with others of their ilk.
Missed a chance of filling the freezer with Urchin Stew Twenty! The 3 of you could have feasted for days!
the original rainman guy died. RIP Cant link to story because Im on the phone. Its in the Guardian.
merry Christmas to everyone.
Novelistic writing is for cunts.
“Twenty = TC, Benny = Dave, Gluey for Officer Dibble ?”
….which would make maggot what the cats leave behind in the litter box….
A little off the point: Here’s your Christmas present from ‘Pulmon el Menor’
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/dolphin_punch
Ohhhhhh, who’s a bitchy Gluey then!
What did he need the yellow pages for? Does he not have the number of the local barracks? If he just dialled 999 or 112 he could have waited in the whole evening for the Gardaí to come. A promise of a wee dram of Glencadam would have ensured the mule would have worked all night to bring urchin heads on a plate.